The starting point for ikkibawiKrrr: Rocks Living in Rewind by the visual research band ikkibawiKrrr(Gyeol Ko, Jungwon Kim, and Jieun Cho) is the figure of Maitreya. In the East Asian tradition, Maitreya is a bodhisattva symbolizing the future. His presence established itself as part of the Korean landscape through the influences of the Donghak, Buddhism, and Muism. Over time, however, sculptures of Maitreya were relegated to forgotten places on the margins of Buddhist temples or survived only as abandoned stones at village entrances and in fields. The Maitreyas found beside ruined sheds and sunlit abandoned schools seem to emanate all the more vitality for no longer being cared for. Taking note of this irony, ikkibawiKrrr focus new attention on Maitreya as “stone surviving the past” through the new film and sculpture work Rocks Living in Rewind, which is about the landscapes where Maitreya is present and the landscapes where we are a part.

As a figure living in the past, Maitreya does not simply date back in time. He suggests a journey of recovery that proceeds at a tempo connected to nature, rather than the sorts of speeds sought in modernity. For ikkibawiKrrr, Maitreya is a medium for exploring ways of forming new relationships with mountains, the wind, the sky, and the earth. This recalls the concept of “borrowed scenery” from traditional East Asian landscape painting, as a metaphor for human beings living as one with nature. Maitreya is able to exist freely because he has been abandoned, and he speaks to us of the potential for deeper connection with our landscape through abandonment.

Rock n’ Feel shares the experiences encountered by the artists while running their hands over Maitreya as they used charcoal to feel a cold, solid statue. This approach elicits a sensory connection with an alienated landscape and sculpture, allowing for the rediscovery of the forgotten presence of art in life. Rock n’ Feel presents the curves and marks of the statue that ikkibawiKrrr’s ran their hands over, showing that the reality of a Maitreya who appears two-dimensional to the naked eye is actually a quite dramatic mass. Yet that fineness is more tactile than visual, and the continuous flows of the mass result in similarity and distance intersecting in the process of exploring that relationship and form. Perhaps what the artists felt was not simply the statue’s body but the textures of time entangled with it. Ironically, what allowed them to run their hands over the Maitreya statue in the first place was the fact that it was abandoned and unvisited.

Finally, the exhibition presents a video work entitled Dances with Trash. It shows dust and pieces of garbage dancing in ruins untouched by human hands. In that untouched dust, it shows a new relationship of harmony with nature, while posing questions to us about the meaning of coexistence.

ikkibawiKrrr: Rocks Living in Rewind reflects on the everyday landscapes to which we belong, looking to abandoned stones and landscapes to find the solace and hope that Maitreya offers as one “surviving the past.” One may imagine the new connections we can form in ecological landscapes when we have Maitreya’s “courage to be abandoned.”

About the Artist
ikkibawiKrrr
ikkibawiKrrr is a visual research band consisting of members Gyeol Ko, Jungwon Kim, and Jieun Cho. Their name combines the Korean words for “moss” (ikki) and “rock” (bawi) with the onomatopoeic word krrr. Their artistic approach reflects aspects of moss as something that expands its world with its surrounding environment along the narrow boundary between land and air. As the members meet with farmers, divers, scholars, and many others, ikkibawiKrrr learns about plants, natural phenomena, human beings, and ecology through their ways of life. The band has also explored phenomena relating to tropical life and seaweeds, which grow independently while also expanding their boundaries to become part of the environment. ikkibawiKrrr major group exhibitions include Forms of the Shadow (Secession, 2024), Breath(e): Toward Climate and Social Justice (Hammer Museum, 2024), Littoral Chronicle (British Council in Korea, Korea Foundation, 2024), Sending Love during Uncertain Time (M+, 2024), Yellow Memory (K History Schoolhouse, 2023), THIS TOO, IS A MAP (The 12th Seoul Mediacity Biennale, 2023), soft and weak like water (14th Gwangju Biennale, 2023), Lumbung (Kassel Documenta 15, 2022).

Performance
Bring Me with You
Dates: Tue, Dec 3, 2024 at 16:00, Sat, Dec 7, 2024 at 14:00,
Venue: Space2, Art Sonje Center
Performer: Agus Nul Amal

Artist Talk
Dates: Sat, Dec 14, 2024 at 16:00
Venue: Art Hall, Art Sonje Center